Relic of Morytha
by Silvershine The Lone Warrior
Summary: What if someone survived Klaus’s use of the Conduit, and Ontos never disappeared? Follow this man as he climbs the World Tree, meets Klaus, and becomes the Driver of Ontos. How would this affect the plot of XC2 and Torna?
1. The Destruction of the World

"Director, the Beanstalk cannot hold!" I held my head in my hands. The war between the government and the Saviorites had been going on for years, since the Conduit had been discovered in Africa, some 10 years ago. Since then, a huge orbital station had been built to contain the Conduit, as well as the best supercomputer ever built, the Trinity Processor. With its three computer cores, Ontos, Logos, and Pneuma, it could perform incredible feats with the Conduit's power. The cores' AI had also constructed defense units, known as Echelons.

However, the Saviorites did not like the use of the Conduit, believing it had come from some god and was not supposed to be abused. They had attacked the station. The battle had been going on for several weeks, creating a light show in the sky, and it now looked like the Saviorites were going to win.

That was when I heard the words from the Director of the station: "We have no choice. Initialize Aion." Echelon Aion was the most powerful of all Echelons, carrying the power to destroy the entire world. If the Director thought it was necessary to use its power, then things must have been dire indeed.

Then, I heard one of the scientists say "We're locked out by Professor Klaus!" Klaus was a very enigmatic man. His hiring had been widely publicized, and there was much concern over how he would use the Conduit.

I decided to go outside and watch the battle. Getting my coat and shoes on, I went outside. The flashes from the Echelon Sirens' lasers illuminated the night. The explosions did the same. It was beautiful, darkly beautiful, I thought.

A new light appeared, this time the white light flowing around the orbital ring that signified the use of the Conduit. I hoped that Klaus was using it to wipe out the Saviorites once and for all. How wrong I was.

When the light returned, I noticed the clouds starting to appear and flow across the dark sky, faster and faster. I then noticed the air warping around me, and my last thought was, "Is this Aion's power?"

I knew no more.


	2. Unanswered Questions

When I woke up, everything looked so different. The clouds had dissipated, and the stars shown as they always had, but all the grass was gone, and my head felt...weird. It felt stone-cold, as if something had tried to mess up my memories. Somehow, I had escaped the Conduit's power. This was not my last stroke of luck. My house was somehow untouched by the warping air.

I tried calling my parents, only for it to go to voicemail. I called everyone in my contacts, but still no luck. I tried yelling for other people, but no one came. Checking my watch, around a day had passed. In my knowledge, every last human on this planet had simply vanished into thin air. Not only that, all life had disappeared. When the sun rose, no birds sang to greet it.

I resolved to get to the bottom of what had happened, and thus began my journey through the derelict city to reach the bottom of the Beanstalk.

The first thing I did was to try to get some sort of food. The grocery store would likely still be quite well-stocked, and if all life except myself was gone, it wasn't really stealing. I set out for the store, taking my backpack with some clothes in it, my sleeping bag, and a knife from my kitchen in case something had somehow survived and was aggressive.

As I was walking through the streets, I heard a loud noise, and then a very plaintive meow. The meowing got louder, and I realized that there was a gray-and-white cat pressing up against the window of a nearby house. As I watched, it banged its paws on the window again, and meowed plaintively, looking directly at me.

I couldn't ignore this. I knew how to take care of cats; my parents had kept them when I was little, but I was simply shocked that anything besides myself and possibly Klaus had survived. I broke the window next to the one the cat was in and then opened it from the inside, climbing in. The cat immediately heard me come in and ran up to me, purring loudly. I was able to get a good look at its collar, figuring out that it was male, three years old, and was called Nutso.

I figured out which food Nutso had been fed by his previous owners. He had been wearing a leash, so I took hold of it, and we left the house through its front door. We set off for the store.

As we approached the store, I thought a bit about the situation. Everything living seemed to be gone, except for the two of us. We entered, and stocked up on enough food to last two weeks, as well as some food for Nutso. Lost in thought, I was suddenly jolted out of my daydream when I heard Nutso hissing.

A hulking humanoid abomination stood before us. It would have easily stood fifteen feet tall if it wasn't hunched over. Still, it towered over us. It had dark gray skin, and glowing red eyes, as well as what looked like Core Crystals, the recently developed artificial brain cells, sticking out of its back.

It hissed back at Nutso, and then made a lunge at him. I pulled him away, and scooped him up and ran, just in time as it somehow summoned a blast of freezing wind at us. The monster knocked over shelves of snack foods as it desperately chased after us. We eventually hid in the upstairs offices, because it couldn't fit in the staircase.

After hearing some growling, screeching, and snuffling, we eventually heard it lumbering away. After a few hours, we came back down the staircase, and ran out of the store. Little did I know that I would never enter any more stores like that for as long as I lived.

We eventually reached the base of the Beanstalk, the so-called Megaflote Base. We entered, and to our horror, there were three more of the monsters. They hissed at us, and immediately sent blasts of fire, electricity, and water at us. Nutso ran and hid, and I was able to dodge the fire and electricity, but the water hit me and knocked me down.

The monsters towered over me, and I quickly dodged them. I was able to climb onto the fire one's back and crack its crystal with my knife, causing it to explode and knock out the water one as well. The electric one rushed me, and I tried to dodge.

Too late. It caught me, stunning me, then pinned me to the ground. As it prepared a red laser to finish me off, Nutso attacked. He bit and scratched the monster on its legs and back, causing it to screech out in pain, and go after him. As it was distracted, I was able to get on top of it, pinning it to the ground, weakened by Nutso's attack. I cracked its Core Crystal, causing it to dissolve into a fine, glowing violet mist.

To my horror, I realized that it had left behind torn and stretched human clothes. Its tag said, "Base Guard, #127214." Nutso came out from wherever he had sequestered himself after his attack on the mutated human. I resolved to get to the bottom of why some humans were mutated instead of disappearing. Nutso was still on edge, but it seemed like there weren't any more humans around, so I took out my sleeping bag and went to sleep, and tied Nutso's leash to one of the poles.

The next day, we would begin our long climb up the Beanstalk, and leave the destroyed world, which would come to be known as the Land of Morytha. But for now, I let Nutso sit on my chest and purr, while I fell asleep, by the elevator that would lead to Klaus and the Rhadamanthus Station.

**A/N: I didn't mean for Nutso to look like Judd from Splatoon. It's completely coincidental.**


End file.
